The First Four Years

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The First Four Years

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Overview

Laura Ingalls Wilder is beginning life with her new husband, Almanzo, in their own little house. Laura is a young pioneer wife now, and must work hard with Almanzo, farming the land around their home on the South Dakota prairie. Soon their baby daughter, Rose, is born, and the young family must face the hardships and triumphs encountered by so many American pioneers.

And so Laura Ingalls Wilder's adventure as a little pioneer girl ends, and her new life as a pioneer wife and mother begins. The nine Little House books have been cherished by generations of readers as both a unique glimpse into America's frontier past and a heartwarming, unforgettable story.

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts.

Editorial Reviews

Children's Literature - Sonya Goldman

Many parents and teachers are well acquainted with Laura, the high-spirited pioneer girl who moved by covered wagon with her family from a "Little House in the Big Woods" of Wisconsin to Oklahoma, Kansas, Minnesota, and finally the Dakota Territory in the late 1800's. Laura Ingalls wrote the original eight "Little House" books, as they are often called, for children. After her death, a manuscript she had written was found and published under the title The First Four Years. Today, it appears to be just another in the yellow-covered, paperback series from Harper. But The First Four Years is different. It is a very adult book. Mrs. Wilder did not have the opportunity to balance the bad with the good in the recounting of her early married life. From her doubts about farming and her husband's handling of their finances to the overwhelming tragedies of death, fire, ruined crops, and lurking Indians, there is little relief. Her courage and positive outlook struggle to be heard in this final book, but many of the consolations she had in her earlier stories don't appear. Pa never plays the fiddle, her sisters never visit, she doesn't sing or flirt or get the best of a bully. The First Four Years is an excellent book and well worth the read, but parents should be mindful of its more serious nature when selecting literature for younger children.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170095940
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	02/07/2017
Series:	Little House , #9
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

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Read an Excerpt

First Four Years

By Laura Ingalls Wilder

Rebound by Sagebrush

Copyright ©2003 Laura Ingalls Wilder
All right reserved.
ISBN: 061371430X

The First Year

It was a hot afternoon with a strong wind from the south, but out on the Dakota prairie in 1885 no one minded the hot sunshine or the hard winds. They were to be expected: a natural part of life. And so the swiftly trotting horses drawing the shining black-top buggy swung around the corner of Pearson's livery barn, making the turn from the end of Main Street to the country road Monday afternoon at four o'clock.

Looking from a window of the low, three-room claim shanty a half mile away, Laura saw them coming. She was basting cambric lining to the bodice pieces of her new black cashmere dress and had just time to put on her hat and pick up her gloves when the brown horses and the buggy stopped at the door.

It was a pretty picture Laura made standing at the door of the rough claim shanty, the brown August grass under her feet and the young cottonwoods standing in their square around the yard.

Her dress of pink lawn with its small sprigs of blue flowers just cleared her toes. The skirt was full, and tucked to the waist. The little tight waist with long sleeves and high neck had a bit of lace at the throat. The sage-green, rough-straw poke bonnet lined with blue silk softly framed her pink cheeks and her large blue eyes with the bangs ofher brown hair above them.

Manly said nothing of all this, but he helped her into the buggy and tucked the linen lap robe carefully about her to keep off the dust. Then he tightened the reins and they dashed away for an unexpected weekday afternoon drive. South twelve miles across bare prairie to lakes Henry and Thompson, along the narrow neck of land between them where chokecherries and wild grapes grew. Then over the prairie again east and north to Spirit Lake fifteen miles away. Forty or fifty miles in all, but always "around the square" to come home.

The buggy top was up to make a shade from the heat of the sun; the horses' manes and tails flew out on the wind; jack rabbits ran and prairie chickens scuttled out of sight in the grass. Striped gophers ducked into their holes and wild ducks flew overhead from one lake to another. Breaking a somewhat lengthy silence, Manly said, "Can't we be married soon? If you don't want a big wedding, and you would be willing, we could be married right away. When I was back in Minnesota last winter, my sister started planning a big church wedding for us. I told her we didn't want it, and to give up the idea, but she hasn't changed her mind. She is coming out here with my mother, to take charge of our wedding. But harvest is right on hand. It will be an awfully busy time and I'd like us to be settled first."

Laura twisted the bright gold ring with its pearl-and-garnet setting around and around on the forefinger of her left hand. It was a pretty ring and she liked having it, but. . . "I've been thinking," she said. "I don't want to marry a farmer. I have always said I never would. I do wish you would do something else. There are chances in town now while it is so new and growing."

Again there was a little silence; then Manly asked, "Why don't you want to marry a farmer?" And Laura replied, "Because a farm is such a hard place for a woman. There are so many chores for her to do, and harvest help and threshers to cook for. Besides a farmer never has any money. He can never make any because the people in towns tell him what they will pay for what he has to sell and then they charge him what they please for what he has to buy. It is not fair."

Manly laughed. "Well, as the Irishman said, 'Everything is evened up in this world. The rich have their ice in the summer but the poor get theirs in the winter."'

Laura refused to make a joke of it. She said, "I don't always want to be poor and work hard while the people in town take it easy and make money off us."

"But you've got it all wrong," Manly told her seriously. "Farmers are the only ones who are independent. How long would a merchant last if farmers didn't trade with him? There is a strife between them to please the farmer. They have to take trade away from each other in order to make more money, while all a farmer has to do is to sow another field if he wants to make a little extra.

"I have fifty acres of wheat this year. It is enough for me, but if you will come live on the farm, I will break the ground this fall and sow another fifty acres next spring.

"I can raise more oats too and so raise more horses, and it pays to raise horses.

"You see, on a farm it all depends on what a man is willing to do. If he is willing to work and give his attention to his farm, he can make more money than the men in town and all the time be his own boss."

Again there was a silence, a rather skeptical silence on Laura's part, broken at last by Manly, who said, "If you'll try it for three years and I haven't made a success in farming by that time, I'll quit and do anything you want me to do. I promise that at the end of three years we will quit farming if I have not made such a success that you are willing to keep on."

And Laura consented to try it for three years. She liked the horses and enjoyed the freedom and spaciousness of the wide prairie land, with the wind forever waving the tall wild grass in the sloughs and rustling through the short curly buffalo grass, so green on the upland swells in spring and so silvery-gray and brown in summer. It was all so sweet and fresh.

Continues...

Excerpted from First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder Copyright ©2003 by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

Many parents and teachers are well acquainted with Laura, the high-spirited pioneer girl who moved by covered wagon with her family from a "Little House in the Big Woods" of Wisconsin to Oklahoma, Kansas, Minnesota, and finally the Dakota Territory in the late 1800's. Laura Ingalls wrote the original eight "Little House" books, as they are often called, for children. After her death, a manuscript she had written was found and published under the title The First Four Years. Today, it appears to be just another in the yellow-covered, paperback series from Harper. But The First Four Years is different. It is a very adult book. Mrs. Wilder did not have the opportunity to balance the bad with the good in the recounting of her early married life. From her doubts about farming and her husband's handling of their finances to the overwhelming tragedies of death, fire, ruined crops, and lurking Indians, there is little relief. Her courage and positive outlook struggle to be heard in this final book, but many of the consolations she had in her earlier stories don't appear. Pa never plays the fiddle, her sisters never visit, she doesn't sing or flirt or get the best of a bully. The First Four Years is an excellent book and well worth the read, but parents should be mindful of its more serious nature when selecting literature for younger children.

Children's Literature - Sonya Goldman